This Is Why We Need To Keep Newspapers Around

I have been a newspaper junkie for much of my life.



Even very young, five, six-years-old, I would race up to my grandfather's corner store, and read the paper before school, going back-to-front, having to scope out, first, how my favorite sports team made out the night before.

There was so much stuff to be wondered by.

Aside from the hard news, and the Op-Ed Pages, newspapers are necessary for something much, much more;

Filler articles, and the local answer man, or advice giver.

These items are gold and a really good item makes trekking through the paper a most satisfying experience.

Today's 'The Boston Globe' has such an item.



It comes from the "Ask Dr. Knowledge" column (who is actually, a local Physics professor);

Why is drinking a milkshake through a straw harder than a soft drink?

Q - If I order a soft drink at a fast-food restaurant, I can drink it with a thin straw or a wide straw, with little difficulty either way. When it comes to a milkshake though, I can’t get anything at all through the narrow straw. Why?

A - The first thing to notice about the milkshake is that it’s viscous, which is the scientific way of saying that it’s sticky. Water is somewhat viscous, too, but much less so.

[snip]

If you can just manage to suck up a milkshake through the wide straw, however, you would need 16 times the suction to get it up the narrower one at the same rate.

There is more detail Dr. Knowledge provides the benighted milkshake drinker, so check that out.



What marveled me was that there was someone out there, so stumped, so fraught with anxiety, so lost over the complexity of straws, parched, maybe jonesin' for a milkshake, and perpetually stymied by those darn straws, the straw being Lucy-and-the-football, that they wrote (perhaps emailed) the local newspapers' "Dr. Knowledge" in a quest to have their life reunited with the tasty ice-cream, milk and syrup libation.

And, I have to wonder, if, in the Doc's answer, the part about needing "16 times the suction", if he was, slyly, telling the questioner that, you gotta really suck, both, to drink the milkshake, and, to send in a question like that.

This is why we need to keep newspapers around.

Bonus Links

Michael Sokolove: What’s a Big City Without a Newspaper?

Will Bunch: Apple's tablet will NOT save journalism

Danny Sullivan: Google CEO Eric Schmidt On Newspapers & Journalism

Clay Shirky: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable

Robert Reich: "Old Politics ... Old Media Are Irrelevant Now"

I am surprised, in waking up this morning, that the Clinton Campaign hadn't worked up another faux outrage.

Who would think they would do such a thing?

I half expected that Howard Wolfson would be plastered all over morning cable, boiling over that Barack Obama insulted an American Icon and Hero, Annie Oakley, and that he should be fired, equating it to former Obama aide, Samantha Powers calling Hillary a monster.

Which, in the nature of the Clinton Campaign, and as Wolfson has done previously, he would actually be dissing his own candidate, connecting those dots.

It's all "Bitter ... Small Town ... Working Class Voters" in the news cycle today.

Over ...And Over ... And Over ...

Not that the MSM and Cable New Nitwits are actually contributing to the discussion, offering enlightening information on the subject ... It's more bouncing around between the three presidential candidates, to poke-and-prod them into a "Gotcha" moment ... Throw out a jab or make a gaffe, they need fill their afternoon and evening loops, so they can bring in more talking heads, and rehash everything they babbled on about in the morning.

And it was pretty much like that yesterday.

Little Timmy Russert had on his MTP yesterday, the likes of Bob Shrum, whose career work is on par with jumping out of a boat and still, not being able to hit the water, and, the couple Most-Voted-To-Inhabit-Haunted-Houses, Mary Matalin and James Carville, carping and fuming about Obama and the small town/bitter comments.

To some, being there was a woman in the mix, the thought of diverse comment and opinion might filter in?

More, and more, MTP is looking like a cross between the a Country Club's Early-Bird Special and the Dead Poets Society.

"Must-See-White-Man-TV"

Scarecrow, over on Firedoglake, in his "Bitter? Why Should Americans Be Bitter?", had a good riff;

It's a shame the Clintons are reduced to telling such important truths in private to Harris and Vandehei . . . and to voters in Indiana and Pennsylvania, . . and somehow it just came up on CNN, NBC (wasn't having McCain/Clinton surrogates Matalin/Carville on MTP to attack Obama a clever metaphor?), and ABC's This Week (who can beat George Will explaining "condescending" and "out of touch" with ordinary Americans?). It's a relief we won't need to hear this from the right wing freak show.

However, all is not lost, for there was one voice out there - Robert Reich - that seemed to "get it"

It it brought a smile to me, for I do enjoy, the not-too-often times, when someone bigger, more famous than I, basically says something that I wrote about.

On Saturday, The Garlic jumped into the Obama/Small Town mess (See "Obama Minister Wants To Nuke Small Towns!") and in it, offered;

"It's one thing for the MSM to jump on this ... They have an agenda ...Gotta serve the Corporate Party Line ... They have to keep truth out of the news, better just to offer campaign fluff and pap, like MSNBC the other day, with Tweety (and, disappointingly, David Shuster) jumping up-and-down on Obama's back over orange juice.

Orange Juice!

We just had Petraeus and Crocker in Congress, continuing to sell Bush's Iraq War (and the new one, against Iran) and there was bombshell breaking news, on how all the big cheeses in the Bush Grindhouse met regularly to map out the Torture Program, all this on top of the bleak economics of the country and these lint-heads get all lathered up over orange juice.

Help Me Mister Wizard!

Okay, not earth-shattering commentary, picking out the dolts in the media.

If you played that as a game, you'd become bored inside of an hour

Here's what Reich promulgated yesterday, in his "Obama, Bitterness, Meet the Press, and the Old Politics";

Listen to this morning’s “Meet the Press” if you want an example. Tim Russert, one of the smartest guys on television, interviewed four political consultants – Carville and Matalin, Bob Schrum, and Michael Murphy. Political consultants are paid huge sums to help politicians spin words and avoid real talk. They’re part of the problem. And what do Russert and these four consultants talk about? The potential damage to Barack Obama from saying that lots of people in Pennsylvania are bitter that the economy has left them behind; about HRC’s spin on Obama’s words (he’s an “elitist,” she said); and John McCain’s similarly puerile attack.

Does Russert really believe he’s doing the nation a service for this parade of spin doctors talking about potential spins and the spin-offs from the words Obama used to state what everyone knows is true? Or is Russert merely in the business of selling TV airtime for a network that doesn’t give a hoot about its supposed commitment to the public interest but wants to up its ratings by pandering to the nation’s ongoing desire for gladiator entertainment instead of real talk about real problems.

Hmmm ... Not bad, if I say so myself ...

And Reich wrapped up with this, a nice, clean, Louisville Slugger, swing-of-the-bat;

Bitter? You ain’t seen nothing yet. And as much as people like Russert, Carville, Matalin, Schrum, and Murphy want to divert our attention from what’s really happening; as much as HRC and McCain seek to make political hay out of choices of words that can be spun cynically by the mindless spinners of the old politics; as much as demagogues on the right and left continue to try to channel the cumulative frustrations of Americans into a politics of resentment – all these attempts will, I hope, prove futile. Eighty percent of Americans know the nation is on the wrong track. The old politics, and the old media that feeds it, are irrelevant now.

Amen, Brother Reich!


Bonus Bitter, Small Town Links

YouTube: Barack Obama on Rural and Working Class America, Circa 2004

Hunter/Daily Kos: Obama Orange Juice Watch... Day Whatever

ABC News: Rev. Wright: Fox's Hannity 'Stuck on Stupid'; Obama's Former Minister Breaks Silence, Rips Fox News During Funeral Service

Creature/State of Day: Annie get your gun

Arianna Huffington: John McCain Should Go on Vacation, Hillary Clinton is Doing His Job for Him